Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope’s Advanced Camera for Surveys have discovered that young stellar nurseries (open star clusters) have very short lives. This finding was gleaned during a "Where’s Waldo" search for blue stars tossed out of their open cluster "nest" in the nearby galaxy known as NGC 1313.

Astronomers have long known that young or "open" star clusters must eventually disrupt and dissolve into the host galaxy. They simply don't have enough gravity to hold them together, unlike their much more massive cousins, the globular star clusters. Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI